Chapter 1: The Night We Almost Didn’t Wake Up

Edric never lost control when he hurt us.

He chose the time. He closed the curtains. He told our mother to turn up the TV. Then he made Chloe and me stand side by side while he decided which one of us would suffer first.

We were seventeen. Identical twins. But he never mixed us up.

That night, he got careless.

Chloe tried to protect me. He slammed her into the wall so hard the picture frames fell. I rushed at him. The last thing I remembered was his fist connecting with the side of my head.

When I woke up in the hospital, Chloe was unconscious in the bed beside me. Our mother stood there calmly telling the doctor we had “fallen down the stairs.”

Dr. Marcus Cooper examined the bruises on my arms, then looked at the exact same marks on Chloe. His expression changed.

“Both girls fell the same way?” he asked quietly.

Edric smirked. “Teenagers lie. Just treat them.”

The doctor walked out, locked the examination room door from the outside, and spoke to a security guard.

“Call 911. Immediately.”

Edric laughed coldly.

“You have no idea who you’re accusing.”

From the bed next to mine, a weak voice answered:

“He will soon.”

Chloe’s eyes slowly opened.

We had survived long enough.

Because for three months, I had been recording every single time he hurt us. Every threat. Every lie our mother told. The videos were already uploaded to a private cloud our late father had set up before he died.